By Natalie Draisin November 7
“Shake that a–, girl!” he yelled at me from his pickup truck.

That’s right, from his pickup truck. We weren’t at a strip club, and I wasn’t putting on a street corner show. I was simply walking from one of my graduate school campuses to another in Baltimore.

My friend and I make this trek almost daily, and we always walk together because the incessant harassment makes us feel too unsafe to walk alone. During my six years in Baltimore and two in the District, I have cringed at countless unwanted remarks like this.

Street harassment is ubiquitous, and it probably will get worse. I think about a group of middle school boys who made sexual comments as I walked by, who probably learned the behavior from the elderly man down the street. Boys learn from men as they make inappropriate remarks, and girls will keep learning from women to absorb them.

Street harassment has sadly become a societal norm.

As women become increasingly fed up with the harassment, we’ve published blog posts and videos to raise awareness and air our grievances. Recently, an organization dedicated to ending this behavior videotaped the catcalls one woman received while walking in New York City. The video, “10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman,” was quickly followed by the parody “10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Man.”

There have been a lot of courageous campaigns to help empower women to fight the harassment, such as Stop Telling Women to Smile and Stop Street Harassment, but they won’t suffice. My public health studies have taught me that behavioral interventions aren’t enough. We need laws, too.

Some women are advocating for an enforceable solution, such as an anti-street-harassment law. In a New York Times op-ed, Laura Beth Nielsen suggested a law that would prohibit “uninvited harassing speech or actions targeted toward individuals in public spaces on the basis of sex or sexual orientation when done with the intent to intimidate.” Citing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which states that people can demand equality and freedom from sexual harassment at work, Nielsen said that we should have the right to be free of harassment on the streets, too.

Such a law would not protect just women. It would protect everyone. And Maryland, with its rich history on civil rights issues, including a recent law that protects residents from discrimination based on gender identity, is the right place to start.

However, it’s up to women to drive this fight. Men don’t experience the same degree of harassment on a regular basis, and they may not be aware of the prevalence and severity of the issue. That’s okay. We’re mustering the courage to raise awareness, and now we just have to demand that action be taken in the form of an enforceable law.

To all the women as frustrated with street harassment as I am, let’s stop complaining and start doing something. Behavior change won’t suffice; we need laws to help protect our human right to be free of harassment. Let’s push Maryland to end street harassment.

The writer is a student at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Carey School of Business.

Police in Springfield, Missouri released shocking surveillance footage of a gang of six black males viciously attacking a man and his girlfriend in a driveway near a downtown nightclub.

The woman, Meredith Cole, told police she was sexually harassed outside the club by several of the black males on August 22. She quickly went inside to retrieve her boyfriend, Alex Vassey, a DJ at the Outland Ballroom. The pair then went outside to see if they could identify any of the harassers.
Once out on the street, a gang of six black youths snuck up behind them and started attacking the couple, beating them in their faces and kicking Vassey after he was knocked to the ground.
The video clearly shows Vassey being viciously assaulted, as well as showing the young woman being punched in the face and knocked to the ground twice.
The victims were both sent to the hospital and treated for multiple contusions, bruises, and cuts. Cole also suffered a fractured ankle.
Police were not able to apprehend any of the perpetrators and ask that if anyone recognizes the attackers in the video that they should call Crime Stoppers at (417) 869-TIPS (8477).

Like I said black males are sinister and believe Black woman’s primary purpose on earth is to satisfy their inordinate sexual needs. A Black woman already in a relationship which she disclosed. Quite frankly it is no one’s business whether this or any other woman is in a relationship if she is not interested she’s not interested. Back off. Here’s the article:
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http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5945518
Woman Shot, Killed After Saying No To A Man’s Advances, Detroit Police Say
Kate Abbey-Lambertz The Huffington Post 10/07/14 02:06 PM ET
Police say a man shot and killed a woman after she rejected his advances at an event in Detroit over the weekend. Five people were also injured during the incident.

Mary Spears, 27, was at the American Legion Joe Louis Post No. 375 on the east side of Detroit when the 38-year-old suspect allegedly approached her and began talking to her, according to WDIV.

When the suspect asked for her number, Spears, whose fiancé was also at the event, told him she was already involved with someone, WJBK reports. The suspect, however, continued harassing her, family members told the station.

Police said security took the man out of the club through the back door and escorted him to the front. After a fight broke out, the suspect allegedly took out a handgun and began shooting, killing Spears around 2 a.m. Sunday.

Some on social media were horrified by the news.

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This is an op-ed about her death:
Who cries when black women die?

I’m not asking that as some type of rhetorical, poetic question, meant to move you toward ferocious finger snaps. I want to know. Who cries when black women die?

Further, who cries when black women are killed?

Mary Spears was killed. The man who killed her did so because she refused to give him her phone number. She told him “I have a man I can’t talk to you,” and yet he persisted. Rather than respect her wishes to be left alone, he shot her.

Who cries when black women die from street harassment?

I really do need an answer. Because Mary Spears’s right to move about freely in the world was denied to her, her life taken from her, and there are no marches. No one has broken out the bullhorns or their comfortable sneakers. There are no widespread calls to protect the autonomy of black women and their bodies. The community leaders haven’t deemed this unacceptable and a fate no one should ever face simply because they reject a man’s advances.

No, when black women die from that toxic mix of violent misogyny, male entitlement, and hypermasculine posturing, there is no movement to be born. There are condolences to be offered and “unfortunate”s to be uttered, but no tears to be cried. There is no anger that propels action.

You’ve read this piece before. You’ve read it a dozen times over. I’ve written it before. I could have written it a dozen times over. It’s the piece where someone complains about how little outrage there is surrounding something which deeply affects them, and then the reader is left to wonder, “Well, if it means that much to you, what are YOU doing about it?” You may have written that piece before. And we keep writing them because I don’t think any of us are quite sure what to do.

Where black women are concerned, we aren’t just talking about mounting the evils of misogyny, or even racism. We compete with the sacrifices black women make for their community.

I understand that there’s an impulse to not make black men the faces of street harassment, given all of the ideas that already exist around black male hypersexuality, as well as the disproportionate amount of police violence that black men face as the result of the constant criminalization of behaviors associated with black men. But black women have been allowed to suffer too much for the protection of black men. They have paid with their lives.

And here I am, writing another blog post wondering why no one seems to care.

Street harassment is vile. It makes women feel unsafe in public. But when black women die because we have failed to teach boys and men to keep their thoughts and hands to themselves, that they are not entitled to the sexual attention of any and every woman, or that their attempts at proving their masculinity through verbal and physical assaults on women are failures, the concern fades before it has a chance to actually surface. Black women are expected to keep sacrificing.

On an occasion I was in Prince George’s County I ventured to a Shell gas station off Riverdale Road which leads to a split by-pass of Princess Garden Parkway in the late morning. As I began fueling a Black woman appeared to be there alone began yelling at a black man for propositioning her. Her tone of voice was wrought with anger and disgust but was also characterized as an intent to alert bystanders that she may need help. She stated, “You don’t talk to no female that way!” As more witnesses continued to look upon the situation the black man looked guilty and began retreating yelling “All I said is how she was doin’!”

None of the bystanders, including myself were close enough to be privy to what he said. Whatever it was she was offended, not interested and he wouldn’t let her be.

However, let’s take this black male at his claim that he simply asked how she was doing. Most able bodied black people know this is more than a simple query into a woman’s day or what some may deem a mere flirt (as you know black men are the biggest “slick talking, justifying every bad act they do everyday con artists). When a black man says this to a black woman he is really stating “I want to *expletive* you and you BETTER acquiesce.” This is why the black woman felt threatened because he refused to take her no, her attempt to ignore or simply get away from a total hedonistic stranger as her response.

Remember Joey from the hit sitcom ‘Friends’ and when he asked “How YOU doin’?” and everyone knew what he was up to–the difference is that he didn’t corner the woman in a small space or block her freedom of movement until he got the answer he wanted (which by the way is illegal and deemed ‘false imprisonment’).

This black male wanted to force his lustful desire on a black woman stranger who he viewed as his property simply because of her skin pigmentation. This ignorant black brute demanded what did not belong to him. This is very common street/sexual harassment by black males to Black women. At least she brought immediate attention to it and got away from the predator in a safe manner. Now just imagine how many Black women who are not as fortunate.

During a grocery trip to Shopper’s Food Warehouse in Prince George’s County I was steering my shopping cart towards check out. All of a sudden a black male appeared in front of my cart, forcing me to stop the cart so I would have to acknowledge him. I soon realized he did this on purpose and he just stared at me, kept clearing his throat in a “ahem” manner and began smirking or something. He would not move out from in front of my cart and blocked my movement. I just said “nigger” to make him leave me alone and he walked away.